Cognitive functioning enhanced by cannabis use in schizophrenia

[Alison Myrden]

Thought this was very interesting...

Enjoy!

 

Love and a squish,

 

 

Alison

xx

 

 

 

Cognitive functioning enhanced by cannabis use in schizophrenia

By Liam Davenport

 

01 November 2007

 

Schizophr Res 2007; 96: 169-184

 

MedWire News: Cannabis use by patients with schizophrenia is associated with

enhanced cognitive functioning, with both frequency and recency of use

linked to better neuropsychological performance, conclude Australian

researchers.

There is a lack of understanding of the neuropsychological effects of

cannabis use in schizophrenia, partly due to conflicting evidence from the

few studies that have explored the association.

To investigate further, Carissa Coulston, from the University of Sydney in

New South Wales, and colleagues studied 60 males with

schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder and 17 healthy males, with the two

groups matched for age, years of education, and premorbid intelligence

quotient.

The researchers examined the participants' medical history, substance use,

and psychiatric symptoms, and a neuropsychological battery was administered

to determine attention/processing speed, executive functions, memory, and

perceptual organization. They also analyzed urine samples to determine the

patients' substance use within 24 hours of cognitive assessment.

The control group performed significantly better than the schizophrenia

group on tests for psychomotor speed, inhibition speed, visual spatial rule

adherence, cognitive flexibility, and immediate memory components.

Focusing on cannabis use in schizophrenia patients, the researchers

discovered that 44 patients met the DSM-IV criteria for lifetime cannabis

abuse/dependence. Of these, 11 were high frequency users over the previous

year, seven were medium frequency users, and 34 were low frequency users.

In addition, 11 had cannabis abuse/dependence in the past week, seven had

non-dependent cannabis use in the past week, seven had non-dependent

cannabis use in the past month, but prior to the previous week, and nine had

non-dependent cannabis use prior to the past month.

Logistic regression analysis revealed that more patients with lifetime

cannabis abuse/dependence performed better on the psychomotor speed

component than those without lifetime abuse/dependence. Frequency and

recency of cannabis use were associated with better performance,

particularly on the attention/processing speed and executive function

domains.

While acknowledging the issues around cannabis use in schizophrenia

patients, the team concludes in the journal Schizophrenia Research: "In

essence, the findings of this study suggest that cannabinoids, via their

agonistic effects on cannabinoid receptors in the forebrain, may have a

potentially useful role in the treatment of high-order cognitive processes

known to be impaired in schizophrenia."

[freddie]

I wont pretend to totally understand this research but maybe schizophrenics have been self medicating after all. Mental illness is not well understood.

 

Thanks Alison.

[WantDaChronic]

it means that schizophrenics who have use cannabis on a regular basis over a prolonged period of time did better at the tests they were provided compared to their schizophrenic buddies who rarely smoked or not at all

 

personally i think cannabis should be avoided by schizophrenics even if it makes them function a little bit better because i have seen first hand what can happen and believe me the last thing you want to see is someone tripping balls to a degree they are seeing dead relatives who talk through the schizophrenic's mouth

 

thanks for the read alison